Conventions of Genre

Psychological Thrillers/Dramas

FEATURES

Main features of psychological thrillers;

- It is normally focused heavily on the main characters psychological state as well as incorporating elements from the mystery and drama genres.

- The psychological state of the character is the driving force of the plot line, rather than the plot line driving the characters psyche.

- There is more than likely to be a first person narrative so that the audience has a better understanding of the characters psychological state of mind.

THEMES

There are some main themes that are relate-able to a psychological thriller film;

REALITY

Characters can sometimes struggle to determine what is real in the scene and what is not, and this can cause turmoil in their psyche.

 MIND

The mind is explored so that the audience gets an understanding of the illness of the character as well as the character itself, which normally reveals an inner conflict within one character or displays the characters extreme emotional state. This is normally expressed through first person narrative.

IDENTITY

There can be a turmoil within a character that makes them doubt who they are, or the purpose they are serving in the scene. This usual causes the character to set out and 'discover' the real them.

PERCEPTION

There can be a different judgement of the real world within the character with the psychological damage is completely different to the perception of others in the film with a more sound state of mind.

DEATH

A lot of the themes before hand can result in the end of the film having a lot of death. The characters themselves can also often have a fear or fascination with death and the dead, but this theme is more related to a psychological thriller than a psychological drama.

TECHNIQUES WITHIN THE FILM

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The narrative of the story can try to manifest the main characters state of mind, through words used, descriptions and visuals. Visual text and words are also used to show the thought process of someone with a psychological problem.

FIRST PERSON NARRATIVE

A technique that is used where the story is narrated by one or more characters, and this is used to make the audience feel more involved with the story and the characters themselves, thus able to understand the workings of the characters mind.

BACK-STORY

Having the history behind the situation at the start of the film. This can deepen the psychological aspect of the film since the audience is able to understand the character more. It also helps the audience see what the characters motivations are and how their past may have shaped the story within the film.

Here are a few film that cover some aspects of a Psychological Drama within them.

  

Short film analysis

Short film analysis - Inside.


I watched a short film called 'Inside'. This is a short film, in which has the same genre as our created film.. Psychological thriller/drama..The short story is about a young man who in which has schizophrenia, in which where he hears voices he cant control within his mind. In the video there are several different people of different ages all representing his mind, all saying different things to show the main characters schzophrenia, whilst in an interview with a woman, everyone is shouting different comments like 'just let me die already' 'i hate this' 'I need to get through this so I can be happy', a little girl is part of his mind, and she is singing nursery rhymes. This film is linked to our short film as it has the same genre and idea, as our film is about a young girl who has schizophrenia and her mind is telling her different things and providing hallucinations.

The man sat down is the main character who in which has schizophrenia and all the people behind him are his different voices in his head, they all talk at the same time as him to show that they are the many voices of his illness.



Another shot of the many voices of his head.

Tricky Shots and Edits

 In the process of creating our film, there could be a few different shots or edits that may be difficult, so we have create a list for difficult shots and a list of difficult edits, and different ways we may be able to either practise the difficult shots, or find new ways to create the shots.

There are two main shots/edits that will be the most difficult or us to create, the 'Rabbit in the Headlights' shot, and the end of the film when Jared fades out of the scene.

Character Profile - Carrie

Character Profile - Carrie

Personality

Before Jared's death - Quite a shy and quiet person, Jared brought her out of her shell so she was very trusting and sometimes relied on him to help boost her self esteem. She was very down to earth and in touch with her surroundings. She was intelligent and would have her nose in a book every now and again. She wasn't particularly daring and always followed he rules with a strong mind.

After Jared's death - Still a quiet person and becomes very shut off from the people and world around her. She starts breaking rules, i.e. stealing and taking drugs, because 'Jared' persuades her to, she eventually becomes quite obedient and dismissive and will do what he tells her to without putting up much of a fight. She also has small random periods of feeling miserable but doesn't understand why.

Background

Before Jared's death - Carrie is a 17 year old girl in her second year at college studying A-levels (English Literature, Maths, Psychology and History.) She has a gets on well with her parents but isn't particularly close with them, as in she won't tell them a lot. She has no siblings and has quite a few friends but isn't very close with any of them.

After Jared's death - Same as before Jared's death.

Relationships

Before Jared's death - She's didn't have has many friends as Jared as she was quite a quiet and shy person. Carrie met Jared in English Literature when they were put in a seating plan and they were told to sit together, Jared started doodling round a poem taking the mick out of the teacher which made her laugh then after a few months of knowing each other and meeting up outside of college Jared wrote a cheesy love poem in which he asked Carrie to be his girlfriend, to which she said yes. They'd been together for almost a year (before Jared died) and they were very close but also gave each other space when necessary, they'd started making plans for when they went to university looking at living together. Carrie had a good relationship with her parents but wasn't particularly close with them and she got on with Jared's parents as well.

After Jared's death - She becomes inseparable from Jared but emotionally isn't as close, i.e. she won't talk to him about problems ect, she becomes very distant from her parents and stops spending time with her friends as she's always with Jared. If she's not with Jared she likes to be alone.

Character Profile - Jared

Character Profile - Jared

Personality

Alive - He was a friendly person, who was confident and comfortable in sociable situations, a very open person especially with Carrie, he was daring and liked to say yes to get involved with as much as possible because he didn't want to miss out on anything before he died. Usually pretty well-behaved and tried to follow most of the rules.

As Carrie's hallucination - He starts off with his normal personality then becomes pushy, slightly controlling, misbehaves i.e. taking illegal drugs/ getting drunk/ smoking, he seems quite closed off. Becomes quite isolated and distant from everyone other than Carrie.

Background

Alive - Jared is a 17 year old boy, in his second year of college studying A-levels (English Literature, English Language and Art.) He lived happily with his parents as an only child, not the most popular person but had plenty of friends.

As Carrie's hallucination - Same as when alive.

Relationships

Alive - He's got a lot of friends as he tried to get on with everyone as it was in his nature. Jared met Carrie in English Literature when they were put in a seating plan and they were told to sit together, he started doodling round a poem taking the mick out of the teacher which made Carrie laugh then after a few months of knowing each other and meeting up outside of college Jared wrote a cheesy love poem in which he asked Carrie to be his girlfriend, to which she said yes. He'd been with Carrie for almost a year (before he died) and they were very close but also gave each other space when necessary, they'd started making plans for when they went to university looking at living together He had a close relationship with both of his parents and had quite a good relationship with Carrie's parents too.

As Carrie's hallucination - He becomes a little controlling over Carrie (unlike when he was alive,) they become inseparable and are seeing each other all the time. He also seems distant from his parents and Carrie's parents as he never wants to spend time with Carrie at his house or at hers, he prefers to be at the park. It also seems he's fallen out with his friends as he doesn't see them any more.



 

TASKS TO BE COMPLETED BY THURSDAY

TO DO LIST:

1) Write an audience profile (group) chole

2) Define genre conventions (individual)

- narrative

-themes

-characters

-music

-symbols/ signs/ iconography

-style

3) Write a list of potentially tricky shots/edits that you may need to practice (group) emily

4) Write an audience questionnaire (group) emily

5) Write character profiles (group) rebecca (jared) & amanda (carrie)

6) Start writing script on celtex (group) 

Genre Conventions: Narrative

Narrative:

What is a narrative?
A story or account of sequence of events in the order of which they happened

A narrative is the different stages of the story for example: 

THE SET - UP
The main problem is set up within the first 5-6 minutes

THE COMPLICATIONS
A series of small problems or test have to be overcome. Problems should become progressively harder

THE CLIMAX

The outburst of story: There trend to be car chases, brawls or intense confrontations.

THE WRAP - UP
All loose narrative/plot ends must be resolved to the satisfaction of the audience. Usually channeled through the sidekick. These clues are referred to as foreshadowing

Story line:
Our storyline is based on a girl who is in a relationship with a boy named Jared. She spends a lot of her time with him, they've been together a year now and everything is going well.. if it was all that easy. Carrey has got schizophrenia,in which is leading her to believe things and think things are happening when they aren't and she's having server hallucinations, she imagined the relationship, after her boyfriend is killed in a car crash, she continues the relationship her mind unknowingly that it doesn't exist anymore and her boyfriend is dead. 

Narrative theory in terms of the Todorov theory:

Original Equilibrium- This is where everything is normal and every character goes on living his/ hers lives. For example, in Harry Potter and the Philosophers stone, Harry is just a normal boy living with his uncle and auntie.

Disruption- This is when everything gets messed up and something happens. This is an event, such as a character’s death, or a new character being introduced. For example, in Harry potter and the philosophers stone Harry finds out he is a wizard and things begin to get better and more frantic every minute and the whole disruption with Voldemort.

New Equilibrium- This is when the issues are resolved and there is either a new state of normality or things go back to normal. For example, in Harry Potter and the philosophers stone when he wakes up in hospital and things begin to go back to how they were but better and relieving.

Music:

The music that is most commonly used within psychological thrillers is usually very eery and tension building in which are used to make the moment tense and create a shock. Music and sounds including:

• Tension building
• Creepy sound effects
• Bangs, cracks, whistles
• Silence
• Whispers

Symbols/Signs/Iconography:

Audience profile

Genre:
Our film genre is a psychological drama, A psychological movie examines the psychological being of its characters. For example, a psychological crime drama will not only focus on the crimes being committed, but also on why the person is crazy enough to kill. A psychological drama messes with the audience minds, as it looks into the mind sets and thoughts of the characters.

Gender:
Our chosen film, includes a large amount of romance and sadness therefore we think that the best suited target audience for it would be the stereotypical female, this is because romance is more girly and emotional as the vast majority of stereotypical girls like the idea of the perfect marriage and family and falling in love  and relationships despite all the odds, in comparision to boys. As throughout our film several heart throb moments occur, in which females may find more appealing than males, such as looking back through a relationship and the memories, also sad moments where Carry finds out she has Schzophrenia and the relationship no longer exists.




Age range:
The age rating we have looked into for our film, is a 15. This is because of the use of drugs involved in it. Our overall chosen age range is late teen years to early twenties around 17-25, we have picked this age range due to the fact that as I have just stated there is the use of drugs and it is more likely to be understood by people who have experienced a bad relationship, love and have been through the process of a breakup, and most people between the ages of seventeen and twenty five have, already or are currently involved in a relationship, this is due to the fact that this age of target audience will be more capable of understanding Carrys emotions and feelings throughout her relationship. We also beileve that our five minute film could interest anyone who is interested in psychology, as our film has characters suffering with schzophernia in which she is new to and is experiencing the main stages of it. 

Religion:
The film isn't aimed at a specific religion as nobody in our group has a specific religion or follow any, and nothing within our film occurs or relates to any sort of religion, therefore we are making our film without a religion aimed target audience.

Ethnic:
In ethnic background aspect of our film, we have actors of mixed race in our film, making it appealing to all audiences of different ethnical backgrounds and cultures. However, As our film is  Northern based, prepared and filmed in South Yorkshire, Barnsley. It will be difficult attracting our target audience from different countys within the UK as all actors will be Northern, in which all contain a Northern accent, Which may only encourage people from around the Northern area and background to watch.

Audience Questionnaire

Here we have created a questionnaire for our storyline, so that people can go on, read our story and and then give us some feedback.

Our Questionnaire is below, if you cannot get to this one please use this link -------------->

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/14i_aGh2K5Pxx_hQnCPvXHD2Dy2DG_7kvJMtkVviqYvc/viewform

Official Story Line

Here we have now worked together to create our official story line.

The film will start with Carrie explaining her happy times together with Jared through narration and a diary with picture of her and her long term boyfriend together. She explains about how long they've been together. 'we've been together a year tomorrow, although there was a break about a month ago, I don't really know what happened but we've gotten over it and we are as happy as ever now.' And how happy they are, and the sort of things they've been doing together seen getting back together. *Fade out*

* * * * * * * * * * 

*Fade in* They're walking down a street, and Jared pulls out a cigarette and starts to smoke. Carrie is startled and asks him when he started, and he explains that he's smoked about a months now but didn't really want to tell her. They go into a corner shop and Jared realises that he spent all of his money on cigarettes, and really wants to buy *alcohol*, and asks Carrie for money. Carrie has no money either, so Jared suggests that the steal. When they run out with the stolen stuff in the corner of the shot will be a lamp post with flowers on it, suggesting a death near by. They go to a park to drink the alcohol, and after a while they are starting to get really drunk. Then Jared pulls out a little clear bag with pills inside, and suggests that they take it because its only the two of them alone, and what harm can it do? *shot goes fuzzy and weird* and Carrie passes out form the drugs.
*cut to a couple of months later*
Carrie and Jared now serious drug addicts. The pair have got high again on drugs, and Jared has a realisation that they should commit the ultimate act of suicide so that they can be together forever and nobody can stop our love. Carrie is unsure, and Jared says 'if you really love me, you'd do this for me so that we can be completely together'.

* * * * * * * * * *

The happy couple find a busy road, hold hands and slowly start to walk out to the centre of the road. A car comes speeding down the road, not noticing that there was a pair of teenagers in the middle of the road *rabbit in the headlights shots* *fades to black and only hear the noise of screeching car wheels and a thud of something hitting the car*
Next shot is as if from Carries point of view has her eyes slowly open. She is in pain, but when she turns to see Jared, that pain disappears. She asks 'Did we do it? Are we dead?' But Jared looks sad, saying they obviously weren't destined to be together or it would have worked, and almost sobbing, says how sorry he is. She starts to panic, and starts to raise her voice at Jared, turning hysterical.
Suddenly her mum walks into her room; 'Oh finally, your awake I was worried sick, one minute your fine, the next your taking drugs and drinking, and now you kill yourself? What happened Carrie? Wait, who are you talking to?'
Carries starts to calm, explaining that she was talking to Jared.
Carries mum has a look of shock and horror, turns to look at her poorly daughters face and says 'But Carrie, Jared is dead.'
Carrie turns to look at Jared, and the figure that had stood by her side for the last few months slowly faded away.
The scene cuts away to small shots of little significant parts of the film that link with Jared death.
Last shot is of the flowers seen by the shop, and the condolence card with the flowers has a picture of Jared on it. 

Film Treatment

Title: Dazed

Duration: 5minutes

Audience: It would be mainly aimed at females as it's a bit of a 'tear-jerker'; ages 15 to early twenties as it's set in modern time the characters are a similar age; it would also be for people who have been through a 'break-up' as it's a story they can relate to; it isn't aimed at one specific race as we have both black and white characters; also I think it would be for people in the norther region of England as all the characters are northern and so is the setting.

Distributors: Universal Pictures International, National Broadcasting Company, Columbia Pictures

Synopsis:
Carrie seems to be in a happy loving relationship with Jared, they've been together for two years although a month ago they had a bit of a break (this is all told through narration by Carrie whilst looking at pictures of them together.)
The shot fades to Carrie and Jared meeting up and he's smoking, he then persuades her to steal some alcohol and drink it, he eventually gets her regularly drinking and taking drugs. Jared suggests they commit the ultimate act of love by committing suicide together.The couple find a busy road and walk into the middle of it to kill themselves.
Shot fades to black as Carrie is opening her eyes thinking her and jared are dead but their suicide attempt failed, she's talking to Jared when her mum comes in and asks 'what the hell was she thinking?!' then asks who she's talking to, Carrie says she's talking to Jared and her mum explains that Carrie was there when Jared was killed by a car a couple of months ago. Carrie looks at Jared and he slowly fades away.

Suggested Elements: Bright abnormal lighting for when Carrie has hallucinations. Warped shots when Carrie and Jared are on drugs and alcohol. Crazy 'hyped up' music when Carrie and Jared are on drugs. Emotional music when Carrie realises Jared is dead.

Film Storyline: Idea 2

Idea 2

Sad Romance

Girl is a patient in a mental institute and falls in love with a member of staff, he is always nicer to her than the other patients and they spend time alone together getting closer until it turns into a relationship, she thinks its a real emotional relationship but to him its purely physical.

He starts drifting away from her and she doesn't understand, she begs for him back and tries to please him, they spend a night together.

The next day the member of staffs' wife comes in as a surprise visit, the girl sees the wife cuddling the member of staff and she starts shouting and trying to attack her telling her to get off her 'boyfriend' the member of staff says he doesn't know what she's on about and says that she's been getting out of control and he didn't think her medication was working even though she was on the highest dose possible. The girl is screaming swearing she's in a relationship with the member of staff, he just denies it and says the institute must have sent her mad, he escorts his wife out and the girl is dragged off to be lobotomised.

  

Film Storyline: Idea 1

Idea 1

Psychological Drama

(Everything is abnormally bright i.e. colours)

Girl is in a relationship with boy, has pictures of them together in her room (collage design), she sits with him class - she always acts fondly round him and he's friendly, they seem happy.

Mum says the girl needs to go to the doctors as "she doesn't seem to be herself", girl goes and doctor offers her tablets but she says she feels fine and nothing is wrong and that she doesn't want to take drugs.

Girl arranges to meet boy in the park later, girl sees boy in the park and they smile at each other, girl closes her eyes to kiss him. 

Girl wakes up in the corner of a white room, a woman is trying to give her pills saying "they'll make you better" girl says she doesn't need them. The sound goes fuzzy/blurry whilst the woman is talking "I cant understand what you're saying, but you need to take these"girl repeats herself frustrated woman says"Talk properly I don't know what you're saying, take these tablets please"

(Everything is normal colour)

Girl closes her eyes and opens them, girl answers woman again "I don't need to take these tablets i've told you nothing is wrong with me!" - her speech is impaired.

Girl remembers meeting boy at the park who walks past her, when she realised the relationship was a delusion she had a fit and passed out, and he eyes slowly drift closed as the sounds of and ambulance drone in then fade out.

Film storyline idea 2:

Each member of our group have been assigned to create a story line for a different film, in which we could later on use for our potential film. i have decided to create my own storyline, my idea will involve   using different forms of lighting, sound and images. My own contribution of an idea will be named 'Cross'. I have named it this due to the fact, The cross within this film is a symbol of 'death'. A young family move into a new house away from the city centre, the house is hundreds of years old, The old couple in which lived there before the new family, died in this house with no known reason. Nobody has lived there since. A girl part of the new family, named Jenny, finds a secret compartment off her bedroom, covered by a mat. she goes in and finds boxes of old books, photographs and videos, and a black cross. In the background of all pictures or somewhere within the picture is the black cross and a hand holding it. The girl attaches it to a piece of string and wears it round her neck, she begins examining it and looking it up, and spends a vast majority of his time at school and college researching it, and trying to find what it is. Strange things begin happening to her, she changes slowly, from being a sweet and fairly happy young girl, to being more touchy and stroppy. she begins hearing noises, foot steps and church bells ringing. No churches are around, nobody is in and the house is in the middle of a dark and lonely countryside. Jenny knows she isnt imaging these sounds, she makes a friend at college named Maddie. They become close friends, and she helps her discover what the cross is, one day, Maddie goes missing, she is no where to be found,  But jenny finds a note under her pillow saying 'MADDIE= IMDEAD' that the evil spirit has left. The spirit becomes more and more visible and jenny begins seeing the hand holding the cross, more and more, she looks through her childhood photographs and realises the cross and hand is also in his memory too. she discovers the cross is her demon, and it kills each and every victim in which is cursed to have it, She discovers the old couple died due to this demon, and in the end is viciously attacked and hurt by it. All past memories of Maddie come back, her parents become aware that something is going on in the house, they want to move, they cant stay there any longer. They move back into the city and the demon follows him, it wont stop until jenny is dead. it slowly kills off her dad, It stabs the dad jenny is left with nothing but her mother, her mother is distraught about the loss of her husband. she sets cameras up around the house and catches the demon watching her sleep. The demon worms its way into jennys body, Jenny is now possessed and kills her mother, the film ends with the funeral at the grave yard and on the grave stone is the hand holding the cross.

Film storyline idea 1:

Idea one 'A life for a life':
My first idea for the final choice of film storyline was based on a psychological film genre.
 As I wanted to make my film contain a twist in which would leave the audience reeling.

I Came to the conclusion that my film idea was about a young girl who is diagnosed with schizophrenia this therefore makes her hear strange, uncomfortable voices and hallusinations in her mind, by having this illness it effects her way of thinking and changes her personality completely.

The voice in her head is evil and controlling and is making her do things she wouldn't intend on doing originally, things like harming people and seeing things that aren't there like her dead sister  who in which was murdered in a car crash a few months prior to her diagnosis, Her illness makes her see her dead sister scattered around every time she leaves the house, inparticularly at the place in which she was killed, She tries to ignore her and she knows it couldn't possibly be real. In time she begins to beileve her sister is there, and she can talk to her and she talks back, eventually she runs out of the house to go and see her sister for the daily visit runs across the road and because she is in her hallusinations, she is also run over, and ends up dying as a result.

Second Storyline Idea

This is my idea for a Science Fiction Film, related to time travel.

"The Whole world was plunged into murder, darkness and war because an artist failed to sell any paintings. But what happens if some of those paintings were bought? Would Adolf Hitler have even considered a place in politics? Would he have been given that drive to create ‘The Ultimate Race’? And could the world have been saved from the holocaust? This story is about Laurie. A scientist and historian with a dream. A dream to go back in time and change the world as we know it. Her grandfather and grandmother are survivors of the holocaust, and her idols as a child. Her favourite story was of how they met, which was in a concentration camp where they broke out together. So when they both passed from her life within a couple of months, Laurie was heartbroken so much that she got the final push to do the thing she’s worked all her life for; build a time machine and go back to before World War II, and stop Hitler creating the biggest war earth has ever seen. As she is a historian, she has read just about every book around the Nazi leader, and knows about his artistic, or more failed artistic, past. So her plan was to not kill Hitler, but to buy some of his paintings giving him the motivation to carry on with his dream of being a famous artist. This, she hopes will stop him from pursuing a career in politics, and stop the holocaust from ever happening. This however, starts to have terrible consequences. Will she go back and buy his paintings and stop the holocaust? But will her triumph have a dramatic end for her family?"

First Storyline Idea

This is my first idea for a Psychological Drama Film.

"Simple boy meets girl story. That’s how it goes normally. They have a long loving relationship and live ‘happily ever after’. This story is a little different. Carrie seems like such a normal girl, and when she meets Daniel she felt like her life was finally coming around, ‘Coming up Carrie’ as she would say, after getting past a pretty shaky childhood. The couple started to spend almost every waking second together, going to the cinema, long walks in the park, and Daniel was Carries life completely now. After a couple of months of being entwined with each other, things turn for the worst, and Daniel slowly becomes obsessive and controlling over Carrie, and starts to ask her to do things she’d have never imagined. It starts off small, when Daniel makes a jokey dare for her to steal something from an expensive shop. The ball starts to roll, and weeks later the ‘happy couple’ are drinking and taking drugs, excessively, and Carrie has nothing to do with her family, despises them even, for trying to take her ‘help her’ they said. When Daniel tells her that the only way they can be completely together, just the two of them in their own little world, is to commit the ultimate act of suicide, Carrie believes him because she is completely, madly in love with him. Then Carrie is suddenly admitted to hospital after her ‘final act’, and her parents make her come to a blinding realisation; Carrie has an extreme case of Schizophrenia, and Daniel never existed."